Sept. 2012 courtesy photo of Taylor Rose Hohmann, DOB 8/17/1990. Hohmann, 21, on five years’ probation after she served a year in the Hennepin County Workhouse, faces a parole revocation hearing Monday, Sept. 24, 2012. She was picked up Sept. 15, 2012 apparently with a BAC of 0.208. About 1:40 a.m. March 20, 2010, she struck and killed Michael Rymer, 31, of Crystal as he stood in a lane of West Broadway in Crystal. She pleaded guilty to criminal vehicular homicide.
Photo courtesy of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department.

Despite a prosecutor’s request that her husband’s killer — who admitted to driving drunk while on probation — be sent to prison, the defendant was sent to treatment.

“Hope she doesn’t hit you,” the widow said loudly as Taylor Rose Hohmann was led out of the courtroom Monday.

Moments earlier, Hohmann, 22, of Plymouth had admitted to a judge that even though she was on probation for the 2010 hit-and-run death of Rymer’s husband, Michael Rymer, she got drunk and got behind the wheel of a car on Sept. 15.

When she killed Rymer, she was on probation for driving while impaired.

Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Charles Gerlach had said the woman’s probation should be revoked and she should be sent to prison to serve the remainder of her four-year sentence.

But Hennepin County District Judge Ann Alton disagreed. Instead of prison, she sent the woman to Minnesota Teen Challenge, a faith-based treatment program.

Although the residential program normally lasts 13 to 15 months, Hohmann will be going for 60 days. A 2010 report found that nearly four of every 10 graduates relapsed within six months of graduation.

Heather Rymer said the judge’s decision shocked her.

“You can do whatever you want to do, and they’re not going to do anything about it,” she said. “She (Hohmann) thinks she’s above the law because she’s had no consequences. Going to treatment is not a consequence.”

The judge’s action also dismayed Jon Cummings, founder of Minnesotans for Safe Driving. The group advocates for the rights of victims of driving-related offenses among other things.

“They’re gambling with our lives when they do that, and you hope they’re betting right,” he said of the judge’s ruling.

Hohmann is to begin her stint in treatment Tuesday, Sept. 25. Alton told her she’d be back in court Nov. 16 to check on her progress, but that if she relapsed, she’d go to prison.

Hohmann acknowledged that while she “tried treatment” in the past, it hadn’t worked. She told the judge this time, she got the message about her behavior.

“I understand, your honor,” she said.

“This is your opportunity to prove yourself, that you can get sober,” the judge told the woman.

Hohmann was picked up by Golden Valley police Sept. 15 after an officer spotted her driving erratically. The patrolman later wrote that the woman claimed she couldn’t perform field sobriety tests because of an old cheerleading injury.

A preliminary breath test showed she had a blood- alcohol content about three times the level at which Minnesota law considers a driver impaired.

Last week, she was charged with refusing to submit to a chemical test, second-degree DWI and driving after her license had been canceled. The charges are gross misdemeanors.

At the time of the traffic stop, she was on probation for the March 20, 2010, hit-and-run death of Rymer, 31, a hedge fund manager at Cargill Inc.

Rymer was struck as he was being helped up from the street. Witnesses gave police a description of the vehicle, and police were able to track it down to Hohmann’s boyfriend.

Investigators got a warrant for his cellphone, and when they came to his apartment, Hohmann answered the door. They told her they were seeking cellphone records but really wanted the identity of the hit-and-run driver.

“Well, you’re looking at her,” Hohmann reportedly replied.

At the time, she was on two years’ probation for an April 2009 DWI conviction.

Hohmann later told investigators that although she had learned of Rymer’s death the next morning, she didn’t contact police. She said she thought she’d struck a pothole.

In March 2011, Hohmann pleaded guilty to a single count of criminal vehicular homicide. Hennepin County District Judge Mark Wernick gave her a four-year sentence but stayed it for five years and placed her on supervised probation.

She was ordered to serve 365 days in the workhouse. Like prison inmates, workhouse inmates usually are released after serving two-thirds of their time.

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